THREE
‘IS SOMETHING WRONG?’
Lara shook her head and her spurt of panic subsided. Instead, desire, warm and fluid, spread through her body as his iron-hard thigh nudged hers, then a second later drew away.
‘Is it your ankle?’
‘My ankle?’ It took her a moment to recall turning it earlier. The pain had been sharp but it had subsided now. ‘No, it’s fine, see?’ Proving her point, she hitched the long skirt of her dress slightly to expose her calf and foot, stretching them out as far as the confined space allowed. ‘I just turned it, but it’s fine now.’
She turned her head and found his eyes on her leg. She could see a nerve relaxing and tensing like a ticking bomb in his lean cheek as he stared.
He turned his head, his eyes only brushing hers for a moment before he leaned forward to give the driver directions in Italian. But one glimpse of the devouring heat in them was enough to pull her back in her seat shaking, frightened not by the intent she had seen written in his face but the response it had awoken in her.
She sat there, thinking of the taste of his cool, firm mouth, her hand pressed tight to her quivering stomach.
Raoul didn’t move any closer or attempt to put his arm around her. As the car drew away from the kerb they could have been strangers forced to share a space on crowded public transport...except for the air thick with possibility between them.
Lara’s head was spinning as she sat there, and her thoughts began racing to keep pace with the turbulent thud of her heart.
What are you doing, Lara? You have no idea where you are, let alone where you are going. You just got into a car with a total stranger, and the plan is to have sex with him?
Mark thought you were easy—how is this different?
What does it matter? Lara asked herself. She was just using him. It would be liberating; she wouldn’t have to pretend. So far her wild-child reputation had been window dressing. This was real.
A conversation with her recently engaged friend, Jane, surfaced in her head. A crowd of them had been sitting in a bar drinking shots, except for Lara, the designated driver with a zero tolerance to alcohol, while Jane showed off her ring.
‘It was magic, guys, the moment I saw him I was dizzy with longing—you know what I mean?’
Because it was expected Lara had smiled and nodded her agreement along with everyone else, but she hadn’t known what Jane meant. Not really. And she had actually been happy in her ignorance. Losing your balance, not to mention your grip on reality—Jane’s dream man was not exactly what you’d call irresistible—was not something she envied anyone.
Had she lost her grip on reality now? It wasn’t too late to change her mind.
She halted the inner dialogue and turned her head. Raoul was sitting back, both hands rested on his thighs, as he looked straight ahead. She sensed a darkness in him, and in profile the austere beauty of his face brought a lump of emotion to her throat.
He’s not a sunset, or an ocean view, she reminded herself. He’s a man, a stranger. And you’re in the back of a taxi with him.
‘I can take you to your hotel, if you prefer.’
The offer made her relax. The option was there, although she knew it was one she had no intention of taking. ‘No, I don’t want that. I want you.’
She heard a sharp intake of breath but his only response was a jerky movement of his dark head.
Raoul didn’t trust himself to touch her, because he knew that when he did he wouldn’t be able to let her go. The scent of her, the warmth where their thighs were almost touching, were driving him insane. A woman had not made him feel this way in a long time.
He had never been so relieved for a journey to end.
‘We’re here.’
Standing beside him on the pavement, watching him pay off the cab, Lara wondered where here was. There were no names, numbers or signs on any of the anonymous buildings this side of the street, though she could just make out a plaque on a building opposite. Squinting, she read Embassy, then before she could read the rest of the inscription a big set of gates slid silently open.
He gestured for her to go through, which after a tiny pause she did.
Nothing in the street suggested that this place existed.
‘It’s beautiful.’
Her apprehension gave way to appreciation as the tall gates closed, cutting them off from the street again. The softly lit courtyard they stood in was stone cobbled, uneven and old. The plants that spilled from the massed stone troughs in the central section filled the air with the heady scents of jasmine and lavender, and water spilled from a stone lion’s head set in the wall out into an ornamental pool.
She tilted her head back. The building that enclosed the space on three sides was tall, the first-floor windows arranged symmetrically with wrought-iron Juliet balconies.
‘Is it a hotel?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I live here.’
‘Alone?’ The possibility seemed extraordinary to Lara. It was a massive place for one person...had he got the marital home after the divorce? Assuming there had been a divorce—really she knew nothing about him. She exhaled a measured sigh, starting slightly when he placed a hand between her shoulder blades. The touch of his fingers on her bare skin made her gasp.
‘This way.’
Quivering inside with anticipation that she struggled to hide beneath an air of cheerful insouciance, she let him guide her up a small flight of shallow stone steps, as though she were in the habit of doing this sort of thing every day of the week.
He leaned across her to put a key in the lock of the heavy metal-banded door that was dark with age. Given the traditional, almost historical, external appearance of the building, the inside caused her to gasp in surprise.
Internally it had been opened up—presumably walls had been knocked down to create this one massive ground-floor space, bisected by a staircase that seemed to float in mid-air. The end wall had been taken out and was now glass; several sections of internal wall were exposed stone while others were pale limewashed.
The furniture was eclectic. Big, comfortable-looking sofas, a long, highly polished antique trestle table, and one entire wall lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.
They had entered the kitchen area, which boasted every modern appliance set in pale ash units with polished stone work surfaces.
‘This is not what I expected.’ But then, nothing about their encounter had been.
Raoul gave the space a dismissive glance. He felt no emotional connection to it; he’d simply given the architect free rein. The place said nothing about him or his taste in books, except that he liked big spaces. It wasn’t the soundest of financial investments he’d ever made—he’d bought it for its location and size, only to discover it was falling down.
‘The place was riddled with wet rot, dry rot, deathwatch beetle, I could go on... A lesson in the danger of buying without a structural survey. Once the building was made safe I had to decide whether to reinstate the original period features or not.’ His shoulders lifted.
‘And you chose not.’
He nodded.
‘It’s spectacular.’ She clamped her lips together to prevent a gushing response.
He took a step closer and the room got smaller, her heartbeat got faster, and there seemed a strong possibility her shaking knees were going to fold.
‘I always talk a lot when I’m nervous.’ Should she tell him before...?
Oh, yeah, because that worked so well last time.
‘You’re